State has an obligation to curb flaring

Express-News Editorial Board

Updated 5:20 pm, Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Photo: Kin Man Hui, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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A gas flare burns at Ritchie Farms, an oil lease in La Salle and Dimmit counties, operated by EP Energy E&P Company, L.P. on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014. The oil drilling operation has burned more than 800 million cubic feet of gas in the first seven month of 2014 which is about a fifth of the total gas production at the lease. Ritchie Farms is one of the top sources of flaring in the Eagle Ford according to data obtained from the Texas Railroad Commission. (Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News) less

A gas flare burns at Ritchie Farms, an oil lease in La Salle and Dimmit counties, operated by EP Energy E&P Company, L.P. on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014. The oil drilling operation has burned more than 800 million ... more

Photo: Kin Man Hui, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

State has an obligation to curb flaring

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The argument, albeit shortsighted and foolish, is the market will dictate when necessary infrastructure should be built to capture natural gas. To do so now is not cost effective for oil companies.

But if anything, the market has shown complete indifference to the flaring of natural gas and its associated health and environmental consequences. As Express-News journalists John Tedesco, Jennifer Hiller and Joseph Kokenge outlined, flaring of natural gas surged in 2014. In just the first seven months of the year, more natural gas was flared in the Eagle Ford shale than in all of 2012.

The total for those seven months was 20 million cubic feet of natural gas, enough to fuel CPS Energy’s 800-megawatt Rio Nogales power plant.

And even with the plunge in oil prices, experts expect the flaring surge to continue. The more profitable parts of the play will continue production. And if drilling companies argued they couldn’t afford infrastructure to capture natural gas when oil was at $100 a barrel, then why would they put it in at $50 a barrel?

So, no, the market will not take care of this issue.

Natural gas is a byproduct of oil drilling, but because prices for natural gas are so low, oil producers would rather burn the gas than build the infrastructure to collect and pipe it to processing plants for sale. The price of natural gas might be cheap, but the volume is so great that producers are burning up millions of dollars. The market value of the lost natural gas from the first seven months of 2014 was $100 million, for example.

This is particularly costly when the environmental and health risks are taken into account. There have been a number of complaints about odors and pollution making South Texans sick. And flaring, even when done correctly, releases methane, a contributor to climate change. Although methane is only in the atmosphere for a relatively short period of time, 12 years, it traps 20 times as much heat as carbon dioxide, the leading culprit for climate change.

The flares have spewed a total of 14,000 tons of nasty chemicals through July, likely producing ground-level ozone.

The state, of course, is missing-in-action on this issue.

Officials with the state’s Railroad Commission, which “regulates” the oil-and-gas industry, were unaware that several leading sources of flaring did not have permits. The Railroad Commission only sent violation notices to three companies without permits after Express-News journalists clued them in.

Meanwhile, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has repeatedly insisted that there aren’t any air quality issues in the Eagle Ford. Getting the agency to install one air quality monitoring station in Karnes County was like moving a mountain.

Solutions, although hard to come by, do exist.

For starters, the Railroad Commission could be re-constituted as an appointed board, one that reflects the viewpoints of industry and the general public.

The Legislature and Governor-elect Greg Abbott should require TCEQ to establish permanent air quality monitoring sites across the entire Eagle Ford.

The Railroad Commission should hold those who flare without permits accountable through significant fines and penalties.

And finally, incentives should be established to entice drillers to build the infrastructure necessary to capture and sell the gas being flared.

The Eagle Ford has been an economic boon to Texas, but that does not absolve public officials and the oil-and-natural gas industry from addressing the consequences of the boom.